This video! This video was the pivot of my life. Ugly authenticity beats pretty hypocrite. And then you realize—the ugly was invented by tribal agreement, and nothing more, all along. The good in Manson shines through. He is playful and kind, and this triggers Geraldo directly into showing his ass. You see that the “moral” and “righteous” of Geraldo exists in the television interview format only. He is wearing a white cowboy hat and that’s all. The villain, the one the format wants us to want to be pummeled, steps into the black hat supplied by the show. Wearing that hat is a condition of being on the show. Manson is 100% media-made. And we see that the impossible and ridiculous caricature we yearn for doesn’t fit the actual person. The black hat falls off and we feel ashamed for having agreed with a fiction.

The meaning of “Manson” exists solely in print, in broadcast, and then in the imaginations of the herd. The herd is not dumb. Good is defined by the media—especially television, were attitudes are palpable. News is always delivered with value judgment in the performer’s face and voice. Upturned eyebrows, a mocking forehead, hopeful eyes, a smarmy frown-smile—these are powerful and effective vibe-setters.

Television is the gold standard of meaning. To be good just is to agree with what is exhibited with the this is good vibe. The more indirectly this is done, the more we believe it.

The newscaster makes a face. Nice things are said. They never articulate “This person is good.” But they orbit closely around it. When the image appears, its stepping into a mold that has already been thoroughly assembled.

In what follows, the inner natures of the actors breaks their respective molds. A reversal takes place. It remains the most cheer-worthy television blooper of all time. It is also on the Essential Viewing List of the new religious movement, COSOM.

Manson was an election prop for Nixon—like Willie Horton for H. W. Bush in 1988 or The Elite (ironically) for Trump in 2016.

Manson was the concrete avatar of evil. But he never even killed anybody! It was an improbable feat of marketing. It only worked because Manson was a con man who lived every Evangelical banker’s dream—copulating with countless young hippie chicks who revered him as a prophet. Oh—and because of his eyes.

Every “leader” wants to be a cult leader. Cult leader is the regulative ideal of leader, its natural extension. A leader makes others want to be functionaries of his will. The cult leader, a god incarnate, is the ultimate alpha. Period.